Innovation policy roadmapping as a systemic instrument for policy design

In this paper, we present the concept of innovation policy roadmapping (IPRM) which, in the strategic policy context, adapts the methodology of a more traditional technology roadmapping (TRM). IPRM is targeted at the systemic level of multiple actors and organisations. It combines the structure of the more traditional TRM - including such contents as enabling technologies, applications, products, markets and drivers - with empirically investigated view of the policy instruments currently utilised in the innovation system under scrutiny. IPRM underlines the activities in the sphere of innovation policy throughout the process, i.e. the outcomes of the process can be e.g. strategies to implement a novel policy instrument or a strategy for a region to engage in an active market creation in the context of some promising emerging technology. In the empirical and methodological part we trace out the key lineages of the IRPM. We do this by shortly visiting three relevant projects at VTT: 1) Saimaa Science Park (SSP) project; 2) a project done with Spanish natural gas company; and 3) Victoria technology roadmapping project. Examples stimulate ideas on how responding to grand challenges can be facilitated by a systemic roadmapping process with an explicit aim to facilitate emergence of new innovation dynamics. We conclude by assessing the future potential and challenges of the IPRM approach